


Fleeting Friendships

by lordnelson100



Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works & Related Fandoms, The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Angst and Humor, Awkward Sexual Situations, BAMF Dwarves, Canon-Typical Violence, Erebor Reclaimed, Fíli & Kíli & Thorin Live, Healing Sex, Hobbit Culture & Customs, M/M, Nemesis Returns, Trapped In A Closet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-03
Updated: 2017-11-03
Packaged: 2019-01-28 22:41:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,471
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12617172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lordnelson100/pseuds/lordnelson100
Summary: Bilbo Baggins, wealthy Shire bachelor and eccentric, carefully fit himself into the Shire’s expectations. And then the Quest changed everything.Thorin Oakenshield lives, Bilbo lingers, and going home to his old life gets complicated. With dashes of Ring, monsters, old lovers, letter-writing, Erebor redecorating, Shire lawsuits, a closet or two, and returning nemeses.#“Thorin Oakenshield,” said Bilbo with a raised eyebrow. “We are middle-aged people. Men of the world. You are a mighty King and I am a reasonably apt Burglar. Unwise taunters of the dragon, re-takers of the Mountain. Are youdaring me to jump,as if we are children on the edge of a water hole?”





	1. One

“You’re a truly terrible invalid,” said Bilbo.

“And what would you know about it, Master Burglar,” said Thorin with that strange mix of asperity, haughtiness, and amusement that he served up to Bilbo alone. “In your vast experience in tending wounds of battle?”

“Well, my experience may not be _vast_ , but I’m fairly sure there’s meant to be more resting and a great deal less work and politics. Probably not so much wine, either.”

“This? This goat’s piss barely counts as wine.” Thorin had one hand lazily about an old gold goblet, wound about with bright-lacquered leaves and berries. The wine inside it, alas, tasted somewhere between vinegar and jam that had gone badly off. (1)

“Don’t tell Nori that, he’s very proud of having traded coal to the Woodsmen for it. Now, Thranduil’s wine was much better, I must give him that! Perhaps we should send to him and ask about his wine-merchant.” 

They both laughed at that one. Thorin actually threw back his head as he did it. _He has a nice laugh, which he doesn’t use often enough, and a nice throat--when he tips his head back like that_ ,  thought Bilbo, _not to mention below with that loosened robe, and there I should stop._  

The pair of them were taking their ease in Thorin’s quarters in the Mountain. He had reclaimed a lofty old set of rooms with a wide window overlooking the plains before the gate. Once they had been someone’s magnificent private quarters in the days of Erebor’s glory; as things stood, not so much. Whatever fine furnishings had once filled the space were long gone. They were little more than camping in the once-grand chamber.

Thorin’s people had set up a good-size pallet for him when he was ill, set near the window and piled with a heap of old furs and warm wrappings; they’d got a hearth working, too. Bilbo meanwhile had made a little nest in a corner for his bedroll and pack, and spent the first bad days and nights there. When the King lay in a fever from his wound, he would often ask for him.

He hadn’t moved out later, nor had Thorin suggested it. And when Thorin got better, being Thorin, he’d plunged directly into great affairs and taken little time to make himself more easy, except to get a table brought in for him to write on. Bilbo, who did retain some Hobbit yearnings towards comfort, had scavenged lamps to make things less gloomy, and some old tapestries to serve as a rug and take the chill off, and a few musty cushions to sit against. In old chests, he found moth-bitten cloaks of silk and velvet and from them he made hangings to go round their sleeping area and hold out the creeping damp. He tried not to think how these rags had once warmed the long-dead. With these make-shifts, they made do.

The plain fact was that Erebor was still a ruin. Magnificent, but three quarters empty and stained with a century of dragon filth, and worse things. The first labor the Dwarves completed was to deal gently and honorably with the old remains of the dead that still lay in the mountain. After that, every day was filled with organizing and working and planning; with the influx of returning Dwarrow from the Iron Hills and Ered Luin; with repairing relations with the people of Dale and keeping a wary peace with the Woodland Realm, with— well, there were a thousand things to do.

“One day you will see Erebor as it should be.” Everyone kept repeating that; but it would take a generation to do it all. And it fell to Bilbo Baggins to remind everyone, including the King Under the Mountain, that Thorin Oakenshield was but one Dwarf and newly recovered from a near mortal wound, at that. 

There had been a bad night when Bilbo dreamt that Thorin died in his arms on the battlefield, and instead woke to find him sitting up among his furs, reading dispatches by flickering lamplight. The Hobbit had burst into tears and refused to explain it, though Thorin had looked very closely at him and perhaps guessed something like the truth. Anyway, he hadn’t bothered moving his things to someplace else yet. Someone had to look after Thorin.

And so it was that the two of them were here, late in the evening, the King having been dragged away from the endless councils, sharing this terrible excuse for wine; perhaps not so bad in mid-Winter amid the former desolation of the dragon, for they were alive to drink it.

Thorin lay back on one arm amid his cushions and furs, somehow looking regal despite the spare and tattered surroundings. He appeared relaxed, for once, in some soft deerskin leggings and a grand old robe of embroidered dark wool, loosely sashed at the waist. A white bandage still covered his left ribs but he moved freely and with little visible pain. His mane of dark hair fell about his shoulders, with little glints of firelight picked out here and there. His stern, elegant profile was as clear from worry as it ever was.

Thorin sniffed with disdain at his goblet, then emptied it anyway. As he glanced up he caught Bilbo’s eye. This was the easier to do, because Bilbo was rather lingering on the sight of the disheveled robe slipping halfway off Thorin’s pale shoulder.

The Hobbit looked quickly away. For a moment there was silence between them; then the Dwarf gave a snort, somewhere between a laugh and a curse.

“In any event, I am refraining from both work and politics this evening just as you prescribe, if not from the terrible wine.”

“Good!” said Bilbo, “And yet, if my eyes do not deceive me, you’re still brooding about it all.”

At that, Thorin looked down and his eyebrows knit. “Not so. My mind is on no matters of state. I am brooding, as you call it, about _your_ contradictions. Your curious mixture of courage and timidity.”

“Timidity? You mean my good sense and caution, I suppose!” Bilbo played at a dismissive tone, and rather hid his face in his own goblet. He felt fairly certain he didn’t actually want his contradictions brought forth into the light and given a good hard look.

“Caution! Show me yours! You have thrown yourself at a Warg-riding Orc for my sake. Delivered me from imprisonment, defended my honor before a town square of people, challenged me on my own walls, each time at the risk of your own life, and yet— “

Thorin turned his head and gave him a very considering look that made him feel just a bit disconcerted. Then he said slowly: “And yet I see you cherish thoughts that you choose not to act upon.”

Bilbo found his throat was strangely dry. “I’m not sure that there is anything particularly notable in my thoughts this evening!”

“Is there not?” Thorin turned on his side amid his furs. “Then come here to my side and— tell me truly, what was in your eyes a minute hence? For it wasn’t the delicate coddling of my invalid state, I would swear to that!"

Bilbo did so: he made his way to Thorin’s side and lay down next to him, with only a hand’s breadth of space in between them. He ventured a look at Thorin’s face. If he did not know it to be so unlikely, he would have sworn the King was slightly flushed and not with wine.

“Now,” said Thorin in a low but commanding voice. “Will you act upon your thoughts, or preach to me of good sense and . . . caution? I would hear you.”

“It might not be the best idea,” Bilbo said quietly. Very gently he reached up and put a long strand of Thorin’s hair, which was trailing over his brow, back where it belonged. 

Seeing Bilbo still hesitate, Thorin said, “Or perhaps, you do not dare it?” 

“Thorin Oakenshield,” said Bilbo with a raised eyebrow. “We are middle-aged people. Men of the world. You are a mighty King and I am a reasonably apt Burglar. Unwise taunters of the dragon, re-takers of the Mountain. Are you _daring me_ to jump, as if we are children on the edge of a water hole?”

“I am,” the other replied. “Is it going to work, I wonder?” And Bilbo saw in Thorin’s face that he was actually uncertain; at which he almost laughed, but did not.

Instead he put his hand on Thorin’s robe where it was falling open at his broad chest, and toyed with it a moment. And then he found Thorin giving back a rather hot, indulgent gaze, and so he moved his hand to his chest, itself, right over his heart. It was very warm. “Oh yes,” he replied. “For in fact, I do dare!”

He tilted his head up, and kissed Thorin’s mouth, quickly, and then he ran both hands over him. The dip of his collar bone and breadth of his shoulders; the wide chest with its soft dark hair; his thick, strong waist and hard stomach; the rise of his hips,  just over his waistband, the trail of hair leading downward. Thorin made little move himself as yet: he held himself still under the hobbit’s hands. That itself was arousing. He was so very much in charge of things, ever the man of action: when did he willingly stay motionless for long? But he was, now, for Bilbo. Only he was breathing a little quickly, through parted lips.

That Thorin liked his exploratory touch seemed clear, very clear. With a smile, Bilbo just brushed his hand over the place where the other’s erection lay outlined under the cloth, firm and hot to the touch. The other made a breathy sigh as Bilbo caressed his cock; the sound of it went straight to his own loins.

With nimble fingers he undid his friend’s lacings and rolled them down and off; and then Thorin was lying there, naked except for his open robe, with his big, very pretty, very ready prick jutting upward. Bilbo couldn’t help smoothing his hand all over it, and then he was bending his head, quite ready himself, when Thorin suddenly took him by his shoulder and stopped him.

“A moment,” Thorin said in a hoarse voice. He grabbed Bilbo by his shirt and hauled him close; then he put one large hand on the side of Bilbo’s face, and stared into his eyes. _If he is trying to discourage me, he’s doing a terrible job of it_ , the Hobbit thought. He was fairly sure he’d never been so hard, so aching, in his life.

“Tell me,” Thorin said, low and serious, “That I am leading you to break no vow. That I do not draw you from any law or honor of your people, that I tempt you to break no promises—”

“Thorin,” Bilbo said with some asperity. “Are you asking me if I am _contractually free to suck your cock?_ That’s very noble of you and _very_ Dwarven of you, and the answer is, why yes, I am very much my own Hobbit, thank you very much! And you are not leading me astray, I am choosing to go there.”

And then he went there. (2)

 

#

When he was young, his father was greatly concerned with respectability and his mother was not. Each of them was a good and loving person; a fine parent. He was a lucky child in many things. Their kindly, good-humored, pragmatic affection was a gift that stayed with him the rest of his long life, more cherished even than the lovely home, the books and the china, the place of social eminence and the money in the bank, though those were good things to have, too.

Still, the contradiction— the push and the pull— was always there, between the longing for order and peace and common sense, and the desire for something sweeter, wilder, more vivid. 

By the time he was a grown Hobbit and had begun to see how things were with him, he was on his own. He had a particular companion, an older friend, whom he met through his literary interests and who taught him certain things about  _how to get on_.

“Look, Bilbo, here is how we do it. We in the Shire are not ones to punish each other for our differences; none of that Big People nonsense. But we place a premium—perhaps too great a one—on making things easy for our neighbors. The way most hobbits like us manage is this: keep quiet about it.”  His friend made them both a fresh cup of tea as they spoke, and said all these things in the most matter-of-fact way possible.

“Have your fleeting little friendships; let the married people have the stage; let yourself be called _odd_ , or an old maid, or eccentric!  Be the quaint bachelor cousin at the wedding, you see? Hand out presents to one and all, bring the wine to other people’s family feasts. So long as you don’t make anyone _see_ what they don’t want to see, you’ll be fine.”

And he had taken that advice; for the most part.

So Bilbo had got on till his life had been half-spent. Till Gandalf had shown up at his door and reminded him that he had once wanted more. That he had begun life with a taste for poetry and tales of magic and adventure, perhaps even yearned himself to travel, and meet the other peoples of the worlds; to see, and do, great things.

And then the wizard had forced him into a situation where friendship and affection and loyalty and understanding could not be made _little_. Where they were a matter of life or death.

#

“It’s not _lying_ , lad,” said Rory Brandybuck to Bilbo one evening, when they met at the inn in Bree. “It’s an arrangement. She turns a blind eye as it were. We have the children after all, and that great house and lots of family to look after. She’s full of doings from morning to night, and we get on with one another when we are together well enough. She has friends of her own, and don’t they clack the tongues and toss back the pints when they gather, the busy hens!”

“I see,” said Bilbo, though it sounded perfectly overwhelming to him. “And about that— the children . . .

“Best thing in the world! We both wanted them! Give you a purpose in life, even if they eat you out of house and home. Still, they fill the place with noise and fun!”

“But _how_?” For Bilbo was familiar, at that point, with Rory’s tastes, which were rather vigorous. 

“Oh, that! Really not so difficult, a couple of times a year. She’s a clever girl, with those fingers of hers . . .”

“Stop!” said Bilbo, “I mean, never mind. I did ask. But doesn’t she want—doesn’t she miss—a certain sort of devotion?”

“You are a romantic, Bilbo lad, and that’s a fact!’ said Rory. He laughed and urged him onto his stomach.

 

# 

It was a lovely early summer day in the Shire. The hedgerows were dense with wildflowers and alive with birdsong. The wedding feast for Bilbo’s young cousins Drogo and Primula was rolling along in the midst of a meadow. 

At the edge of the tent Bilbo gazed out over the fields, leaning against a great old tree, and took a leisurely smoke. “Share a light, old fellow!” said Idelherd Brock. He was a good-looking, witty fellow, whom everyone called Idle. 

The bride and groom were coming round with their greetings.

“Cousin Bilbo, the wine was splendid, we can’t thank you enough!’ cried Drogo.

“Hello, Idle! You’re looking very handsome today!” said Primula, who was a distant relation of his.

“Bilbo, when are we going to have a feast like this for you so we can return the favor?” said Drogo.

“Oh, you know me!’ said Bilbo. “Never have been one to settle down.”

“Nonsense, you spend too much time with your books as it is! You’re all _too_ settled, if you ask me!” said the bride. She was given to a spritely bossiness that Drogo no doubt found charming. “Have you met Clematis Tunnelly, my bridesmaid? She’s clever, just like you!” Primula was yanking on the arm of a reluctant hobbit-maid, who seemed to wish herself elsewhere.

“Baggins, see you later for that drink?” said Idle. He sauntered away, hands in his pockets. Clematis looked after him, wistfully. “Good luck with that,” Bilbo thought.

 

#

Another early task the Dwarves had set to in repairing Erebor was the restoration of the steam baths. They were glorious, all carved marble and truly hot water warmed by cleverly-hidden boilers, which was sent through taps where you could blend hot and cold to the perfect level of comfort. The whole room full of big puffs of steam. Crowds of Dwarrow often used it at the same time, dams and men together, even, which scandalized him. He liked to find a quiet time early in the morning or late at night and go in all by himself. 

One day he went for his private bath, and saw that someone had found a enormous ornate looking-glass and set it against one wall. At first he felt the familiar frisson of _shock_ that the Khazâd’s shame-free culture so often gave him— _They didn’t! Oh but they did!_ —and then he laughed at himself and then he went up to it and looked. The glass was much scratched, but still one got a good view of oneself from feet to face, in a way he hadn’t in a long, long time.

He had always thought of himself as plain. That was all right, it was rather the thing to be, where he was from. This journey, though, had changed him. His body, now: he’d gotten rather lean in all these months of hard travel and danger. Places that used to be soft, weren’t so. And his face looked sharper: his eyes, different.

But he didn’t magically look younger: the lines at the corners of his mouth, the crow’s feet at the corners of his eyes, were if anything deeper. He thought he looked a bit more weathered, really; certainly his skin was tanned like a berry and his hair was in a positively rakish state.

What was he looking for, staring at himself stark naked as the steam curled around him? Some clue, perhaps, how the person in his reflection ended up in the bed of Thorin Oakenshield, who was objectively the most handsome man Bilbo had ever met.

It’s true that there were threads of silver in the Dwarf’s hair and beard, and in the dark hair on his lovely body; lines under his eyes, a few on his stern brow. Still, it was _Thorin_ : with his hard warrior’s form, and heartbreaking, sorrowful, poetic good looks, and his _voice ._ . . oh, the voice that got people to do things they otherwise would never have dared, or even thought of. 

And yet! It seemed impossible to deny that Thorin desired him; wanted him, liked him, was made happy by him.

For example, that night when he returned, drying his hair as he went, Thorin looked up from his pile of maps and building plans and gave that small half-smile of his, and left his desk. He pulled him down among the sleeping things.

“Still a bit damp,” said Bilbo.

“Yes,” said Thorin. “And I may leave you in need of a bath all over again, when I am done.”

“Why, Thorin Oakenshield! Are you attempting to talk bawdy to me?”

“ _Attempting_ — Do I fall short of your standards in lewd banter, halfling?”

“Mmmm, you’re really only so-so at it. You’re far too royal and courteous, really. You need to lower yourself a bit more. Like so!” He put his mouth right near Thorin’s ear and whispered, “ _Fuck me_ , why don’t you? You know you want to fuck me and leave me filthy with your come, put your big cock right in me—oh! Oh!” For Thorin did.

Sometimes Bilbo’s past experience of sneaking about and being people’s dirty secret paid an unexpected bonus. He talked excellent smut, for one thing; for another, he had a surprisingly high tolerance for roughness. He liked Thorin being bigger than he, and stronger; his battle-scars and endurance, even his arrogance and bad-temper. When he said these things to him in bed, mixed up with lots of wanton provocation, the results were gratifying.

Later, Thorin lay sleeping with one heavy arm around him, and he looked almost peaceful and content. It seemed he could do without beauty, then; without Bilbo being a nobleman, or surpassingly fair, or even of his own people. That Bilbo’s teasing and affectionate touch, his companionship by day and their intimacy by night, was somehow actually the very thing that suited this King of the Dwarves. And if so!

If so, Bilbo wanted him to have it. Really, from what he learned of it, most of Thorin’s life had contained a shocking sequence of loss and sorrow, bravely endured, a slow grind of responsibility and work punctuated by terrific bouts of risk and violence. A little contentment surely would do him good.

 

#

There was a single fly in the ointment, an ant in the batter, an irritating pebble amid the peas: which was that Bilbo began to feel bothered about his Ring. It was strange, surely, for in the months after the battle, in which he stayed with his friends and helped their recovery in his own way, he had no use for the little magical device. Generally, it stayed rolled up in a piece of cloth in his pack.

Unless it was in his pocket. Which sometimes it was. He got from one of the Erebor jewelers a fine little chain to keep it on; it would be troublesome to lose it.

Now that the rebuilding of the Lonely Mountain was in full swing, he was surrounded by exquisite wealth, crafts of precious rarity and great treasures, every day of the week. The plain little gold ring was nothing next to all these riches, except for its strange, helpful small power. It was almost funny to call it a _power:_  the ability to sneak and to hide, to escape.

Sometimes, though, it had the oddest effect on his thoughts: like an ache that must be touched; like an itch that wanted to be scratched.

 

#

The snows fell deep that winter. In Foreyule, there was an immense storm that dropped knee-deep banks of snow around the Lake and in Dale, and more on the sides of the Lonely Mountain.

“Well lad, that’s done it!” said Balin to Bilbo. It was two months after the Battle. “If we’ve had this much here, there’ll be twice this up in the Misty Mountains. The passes’ll all be blocked till Rethe at least, so you might as well settle in with us for a bit longer. No use setting out for the Shire till spring comes, unless you’d like to lose yourself in a snowbank.”

Objectively, life was not easy all that year; they had to go cautiously with food and fuel. Luxuries were few. The Mountain was half armed-camp, half building site. Compared to the prosperity the older Dwarves remembered, and to what would come again in a few years, compared to his home in the Shire, even,  life was not exactly comfortable.  

And yet Bilbo did not mind it that winter; nor did Thorin and Company, and the returning exiles. There were few grumbles from anyone. Not after what they had survived and gotten back.

One late afternoon, when the white flakes were flying outside the window, Thorin decided for himself that he needed to knock off work early and find Bilbo, and venture out: together they climbed up to the highest parapets on the mountain, and watched the wide valley between Erebor and Dale filling up with snow, like a bowl. A few lights were visible in Dale, just warm glimmers in the swirling gusts of white.

Thorin had his arm around Bilbo’s shoulder, and seemed deep in thought. The hobbit remained quiet himself: there were moments when the sorrows, the fears, the shames of the Quest would come back upon them: these were things that had been, and memories could not entirely be chased away.

There were such solemn moments: this one was broken when gobbets of snow landed suddenly down upon their heads, splashing into their hair and down the collars of their clothes. Fílí and Kílí appeared, precariously balanced on a ledge above; and their shouts of laughter mingled with Thorin’s roar.

Bilbo had excellent aim, of course: and soon the Princes had mouthfuls of snow themselves to deal with, and he kept up an accurate ranged fire of well-packed snowballs while Thorin clambered up and dragged each of them down, to be stuffed in snowbanks in their turn.

They went in laughing and wet and shared an ale or two. The Hobbit was loath to draw the King away, seeing their three faces together, ruddy and content, only uncle and nephews for the moment, and not warriors or princes. But they were all beginning to shiver, in their sopping clothes. So he put his burglar skills to use and filched Thorin away to their rooms.

A little while later, they were lying together; Thorin on top, Bilbo’s hands on his strong back, a nice slow fuck, with the fire built up and the room slowly warming. Thorin finished with a sigh, quietly for him, and rolled off. He was lying face down, not very conducive to talking, and Bilbo stroked his long hair. He thought Thorin said something into his pillow.

He wasn’t sure, it was so muffled. Thorin repeated himself, lifting his head a little, but not looking at him.

“I will not,” said the King Under the Mountain, angrily.  “Repine. It is enough. It must be enough.”

Bilbo looked at him quietly, and did not pretend to not understand.

 “When I lay wounded, I told myself that should I survive, I should never complain of the mercy I had been shown: my people’s home regained; and the lives and honor of my company and my nephews, salvaged from the wreck I made of things. And you!”

The Dwarf turned on his side and took Bilbo by his bare shoulder: “Of course you must see your Shire again, and your home and your people. Your garden and your books, your hearth and your lands: I am not so unreasonable, not so greedy, that I would try to keep you—”

Bilbo kissed him, then, and stopped his mouth. “I will. I need to. See it again, my home. When the snows melt and the road is open, I will go. There and back again, you know: that was always my plan!”

Thorin had this sort of magnificent, tragic, noble—stupid— look on this face that made Bilbo kiss him again. “But that does not mean that we shan’t see each other again.”

The King said, as if determined to _give things up_ and _do his duty_ , and so on, “After how I behaved to you, I am not selfish enough to demand that you—”

“Stop!’ said Bilbo. “Stop using such words of yourself. You know I don’t allow people to insult the honor of my friend Thorin, son of Thráin. If you go on, I’ll be forced to fight you or something, in defense of well, _you_ , and that would be even stupider than some of our adventures so far, and harder to explain!”

Thorin laughed; so long as Bilbo could keep making that happen, things would come right in the end. The Dwarf’s eyes were wet, however, with unshed tears. That was not so good. Bilbo took it upon himself to fix things.

#

Each week brought new waves of returning Dwarves to Erebor, and the court around Thorin was growing larger and more complex. Instead of the simplicity of the Company, there were relations between the King Under the Mountain and the Lord of the Iron Hills and their followers to manage, and people had to have their roles confirmed as advisers and officers and bankers and healers and master craftspeople.

Beyond that were even larger circles, the people of Erebor, the larger clan of Durin’s Folk both here and elsewhere, old friends, courtiers, traders, complainants and petitioners: the numbers swelled.

Thorin was insistent that Fílí and Kílí take up in all seriousness their roles as Heirs and Princes. Good young Dwarrow that they were, and proud as he was of them, there were certain outbursts of shouting. _Some people did not remember what it was to be young_ , it was said, and _would not stop interfering._  Bilbo forbade the three of them from dragging him into it; Balin laughed at him for thinking he could stay clear.

One week there arrived a large party from Ered Luin lead by a famous mine-owner and gold dealer: an old crony of Thorin’s family, apparently. Grådig was a very fancy Dwarven lady with a big shelving bosom she liked to display in brocaded robes stiff with gems, and twisted wires of gold woven through her blond ringlets and beard. She pointed all these in Thorin’s direction with no subtlety at all.

She had a clever tongue, too, which to Bilbo’s taste was worse. She amused Thorin; got him to talk of old times and gossip about other Khazâd houses. Bilbo had always thought Thorin too lonely, too reserved; shouldn’t he be happy for him? And Grådig was not fool enough to be rude to the King’s close friend; not quite. Instead, she talked to Bilbo as if he were a small lame dog; a consoling tone, as if to say “ _Poor little thing_!”

One evening at a great crowded gathering in the Trade Hall, the Dwarrowdam was hard at work charming a circle around her, jesting with a great fruity laugh, with her pretty locks and braided chin thrown back, in a gown of scarlet velvet, beaded with gold butterflies and flowers. A certain uncle and nephews were among those laughing in return.

Seeing Bilbo sulking in a corner with a mug of ale, rough Dwalin thumped himself down beside him. “I have known Thorin since he came to manhood,” he said. “There was never going to be a Queen under the Mountain. Ever. Dís was always in charge of making the heirs.”

Bilbo did not feel like being talked out of his resentment, at the moment. “Well, there wasn’t a Mountain to be Queen of, for the last century, was there?” he snapped. “New Year, new deals, isn’t that what you lot say?”

“Suit yourself,” said Dwalin, and drained his ale. Left alone, Bilbo told himself he was being a fool of a Hobbit.  Even as he tormented himself, he knew Thorin cared for him, and not a pin for Grådig and her tits and gold. But the heart is a stubborn, foolish thing, at times.

Wasn’t it time he began readying himself to travel?

#

 When the snows melted and the roads opened, he began making inquiries. Gandalf, who had been back and forth among the Mountain and the Woodland Realm and Dale, trying to help the recovery of the North remain on an even keel, was about to set forth for Rivendell.  
  
When Bilbo made his request, Gandalf gave him a long, long look, and nodded.

The Company cheered him and wished him well and gave him presents, and there was a whole week of parties and drinking and promises to meet again.

Thorin seemed at his best: good-humored, courteous, generous in praise for everything the Hobbit had done for them, calm in extending courtly phrases about eternal welcome and friendship.

Only on the last day the King said to Balin: “I shall say goodbye to him in my rooms; I will not do it before the others. You must tell them to leave me alone about it.” And the kindly old adviser made sure they did.


	2. Two

Once he was home again, nothing was quite as Biblo expected.

Well, _home again_ : there was an interesting concept to begin with. For they’d declared him dead, in the time he’d been adventuring and lingering on at the Mountain. Sold his things at auction; given Bag End to his heirs. His coming to life again was the greatest scandal in the Shire in a generation.

If his respectability had been smashed by his running off with a pack of Dwarves to his presumed death, it  was ground into dust by his coming back again and insisting on being alive.

For he refused to be quiet about it. His bankers, bless their furry feet and conservative hearts, had had the good sense to dig in and refuse to turn over his capital to the Sackville-Bagginses without proof of death. And to the fortune he inherited, he added a pile of dragon-gild and troll-winnings. Rumor exaggerated his wealth, to be sure, but there was _lots_.

So he took the finest lodgings to be had and harried the S-B’s at law tooth and nail, while their many hangers-on and gossips screamed and cried out, called him a madman and an imposter and a pawn of Dwarves and other less complimentary things. He hadn’t got the deed and keys to Bag End back yet, but they were coming. (3)

Of course, it wasn’t just the walls of his hereditary smial he was missing: his fine rugs and his arm chair, the portraits of his parents, his bedstead and his silver, his mother’s china and his collection of books, all had gone. He made a game out of walking through his home in memory, making an inventory, and then chasing things down. A few hobbits came back to him with things of his they’d bought at auction and handed them over freely. He wouldn’t forget those who had. Others he sued; some he simply paid. It depended how rude they were. In some cases, he positively relished pursuing the enemy down to the last spoon, _Lobelia_.

“You are enjoying this entirely too much, Bilbo Baggins,” said Gandalf.

“They’re _my_ things, Gandalf,” he answered, with annoyance all too evident. “Mine!” He fingered the little plain ring in his pocket. “You don’t know what it’s like to come back again to the place you called home and find everything changed, and the things you loved gone!”

Gandalf leaned back in his chair, drawing on his pipe, and gave the hobbit a very long, quiet stare. Suddenly Bilbo thought, _you fool, you have no idea how old he is, or what he’s seen, or where he came from originally, or—_  

“At least, that’s not exactly what I mean. I just want to see everything back where it belongs! I want to put things right, and make some thieving people pay for their selfish ways.”

“Getting everything back where it  belongs and making wrongdoers pay is a bigger ambition than you realize, Bilbo. Many are those, far greater and more powerful than you, who have come to great sorrow in such a quest!” The wizard looked sad and stern.

At Bilbo’s bewildered look, he sighed. “I am profoundly sorry about Bag End and poor Belladonna’s dishes, and your father’s library! But you have enough money, and more, for new things. Isn’t it time you started worrying more about where _you_ belong, and less about your fire irons?”

#

The hobbit walked a muddy back lane one morning, wondering about just that. Gandalf was right, as usual; his lawsuits and his arguments, his war against the refractory relations, were simply his way of distracting himself.

It had not been easy leavingThorin. It had been achingly, painfully difficult.

Thorin visibly straining to be _noble_ and _forbearing_ and _generous_ about it had only made it harder. If only he’s scolded and grumbled, been high-handed and arrogant about things, how much more easy Bilbo would be in his mind!

When the King had ordered to Bilbo to go home in the midst of their adventures, to go back to his books and his fireside,  \it had been very clear to the hobbit that he needed to defy him and stay. By that logic, if Thorin had only demanded that the hobbit stay with him in Erebor, it would have made the leaving of it simpler!

No, in the end his reasons for coming back to the Shire were not so clean. Because he missed it, because it was his home, and he had _always said_ that he was going back again.

Because the Quest for Erebor and the defeat of Smaug were completed. Because he had stayed for Thorin when he had fallen into darkness, and just as he had always hoped and believed, Thorin had righted himself and come back into the light, a hero and a King. Because he had stayed by Thorin when he was wounded, but now he was well.

When they were the Company, he had a place in it: but what now, in a kingdom of Khazâd? There was no Queen and some said there never would be, but still: how could _he_ be the one to stand by the King?

All his little fleeting friendships, which were what he knew of love, had not taught him how to stand by anybody’s side, in the open, and visible; had not taught him how to _stay_. Indeed, they had taught him how to do the opposite: to hide, to step aside, to be discreet, not to make a fool of himself, not to be a spectacle. He had learned how to hide in plain sight even before the Ring.

Shortly after getting back to the Shire,  he sat down at the awkward little desk in his rented lodgings and wrote to Thorin. _My dear_ — he began. And then what? _You seemed visibly heartbroken when I left, but I hope it's for the best_ ? Perhaps, _Please say I did not hurt you too badly_ ? Perhaps _And yet I am equally afraid that you have soon got over me_?

No, none of that. Instead he wrote an amusing letter: full of the little adventures of his homeward journey, his rude behavior to King Thranduil, the ridiculous fuss his return had made in the Shire. 

An amusing letter. Not a very revealing one, nor very honest, nor very brave. He sent it before he lost his nerve. It would be a long time before he could even imagine it reaching the Mountain. 

Thorin was in his thoughts every day. He did not pretend to himself that he wished it were otherwise.

 

#

The Hobbit had often lain with people without either of them caring very much about it. But he had done so before he knew what it was to hold someone in his arms whom he passionately loved.

Lying face down in a dowdy, much-worn bedroom of the Prancing Pony, letting himself be used by an old acquaintance who had never deeply cared for him — who had no idea what was going on inside Bilbo’s heart right now— was . . .

The bed squeaked. His body responded to being handled in a listless, mechanical way. He couldn’t stop listening to the sounds of people shouting in the bar, the clatter of wagons in the inn yard. The fire was poorly made up and smoked, and the room was damp. He’d had a lot to drink, beforehand. At first it had made him warm and careless, but that had faded. Now he just felt tired and ill.

Rory was banging away in his not-unkind, uncomprehending way. Bilbo had thought, had hoped, that he would stop _feeling things_ , if he gave this a try. Or rather, that he’d feel something other than that he’d made the biggest mistake of his life. It wasn’t working. At all.

“Rory!” he said, “ _Rory!_ ” He had to push and pull a bit, and it was awkward as hell: but he got the two of them disentangled. “It’s no good. I’m sorry. I’m being awful, I know, and I should have known my own mind. But I just can’t.”

Rort looked at him, his boisterous red face perspiring, catching his breath; and to Bilbo's surprise,  there was sympathy there. “That’s all right, old man,” he said, and clapped Bilbo on the shoulder. When they got dressed, he said, “Let’s go down and have another drink, eh?” And pulled him back down to the noisy taproom, where there was singing and sawdust and ale, and nothing tragic or serious. He was really awfully good about it, altogether. Perhaps he was a slightly better friend than Bilbo had thought, so long as he never made any really stupid mistakes like tonight again.

#

This time he stopped and took the trouble to give detailed instructions to his solicitors, Shovel and Mudslow, before setting out on his journey. Though he expected to be some time away, he had learned that his life was a series of unexpected journeys; he’d like his property waiting for him, if and when he returned, thank you very much.

Ten weeks later, he was waving goodbye to the trading party he’d journeyed East with, amid the bustle of the inn yard at the Bell and Bowman in Dale. Taking his walking stick in hand, he journeyed the last miles to the Mountain on foot. 

It seemed to take him a tremendously long time to cover that last league: the familiar shape of the Mountain looming over him, the giant stone guardian Dwarrow by the gates, now restored, growing larger with each step. “This time it’s I who am come knocking without an invitation,” thought Bilbo,”and I wonder what my welcome will be?” He had a brief fantasy of putting on the Ring and sneaking inside, then finding Thorin and getting a good peek before he had to show himself. But that would be _timid_ of me, he thought wryly.

There were guards in armor now, standing watch by the gates, with grim dragon-helms and sharp halberds, and overhead flew bright banners: the hammer and anvil of the House of Durin, and the Raven Crown of Erebor.

Just as he began to wonder what on earth he would say to the guards, one of them popped open the visor of their helmet, revealing a familiar face. “Oh, hello, Vanskelig!” he said. “Master Baggins, ho!” “How’s the baby?” “Right sturdy little troll, sir, thank you for asking!” she answered grinning. “Got five tooths, and my tits ache like . . .” There was a very loud cough from the other guard. “Right you are, sir!” She put on a straight face, and summoned a runner with a gesture. “Where to?”

Ah. This was the moment of truth. He couldn’t just stroll in and look up Thorin in his chamber, now could he? Possibly the whole-drop-by-unannounced idea was a terrible decision.  “His Majesty’s away from the Mountain,” Vanskelig ventured, staring over his shoulder with an expression of innocence. “Prince Kíli holds the sceptre while he’s away.” “Oh! Right! Yes, could you ask Kíli, the Prince I mean, if he’ll see me?”

 _Away. Thorin wasn’t even here._ His thoughts jostled one another as the messenger guided him through the lofty hallways, now brighter and more crowded than when he’d left many months ago. Why didn’t it occur to me that he might be away from home? Maybe he’s gone to the Iron Hills, or who knows where. “ _But I need to see him_ ,” he thought miserably, as the truth depths of his disappointment began to seep into his stomach. 

In a few minutes, he was shown into a large audience chamber. Several great desks and tables, inlaid with ornate chip patterns of minerals and rare stone, were covered in business-like stacks of scrolls and ledgers, maps and letters and sealing wax and pens. Kíli  sat amid all this, his brow furrowed, pouring with an air of uncertainty over a long document written in dense, tiny runes.

It was strange to see him without a bow and quiver on his back, without his travel-stained leather coat and bracers at the wrist. Instead, he was clad in dark, rich robes, with earrings and collar of silver studded with faceted beads of black jet. He looked very much the stately prince, now; he also looked rather discontented. His chestnut hair still fell loose and unbraided about his face, keeping a little air of the careless young noble Bilbo had known. He thought he saw a great deal of Thorin in his face, if Thorin had led a less sorrowful life.

Kíli ’s expression brightened at once, when he glanced up as the messenger gave Bilbo’s name. To the Hobbit’s surprise, the Dwarf sprang up from his chair and came and threw his arms around him, with words of amazement and welcome. Oh! He hadn’t expected to feel a lump in his throat, or to find that his eyes were wet. 

“You’ve come back! Of course, you have! I’ve been telling people you would, you know!” And Bilbo wondered, _which people_. “You didn’t write and tell us! Oh well, never mind, here you are now! Thorin will be— ” He paused for a moment, with a little furrow in his brow. “The mill wheels are turning, we would say at home,” thought Bilbo. He was terribly tempted to cry out _Thorin what_ , and _please just tell me everything you can that might help in my clearly ridiculous situation_. But that was unreasonable.

Kíli went and paced in front of the roaring hearth, putting his arms behind him: now he really did look a bit like his royal uncle for a moment. “See here, Bilbo! It’s a bit of bad luck! We’ve had reports of attacks on travelers in the hills to the North, some sort of mysterious creatures that no one can identify. And every witness gives a different and contradictory description, in the usual way! The King’s gone to search, with a good size company, and Fíli with him. I’m meant to be minding the forge while they’re away.” 

He gave Bilbo a considering look. “There’s no certain way to know the hour of their return.  We _could_ wait patiently for them to come back, or I could send a messenger. Unless,” seeing the Hobbit’s face fall, “Unless, you’d be up for riding out after them? Give Thorin a bit of a surprise? A proper return for all of us showing up on your doorstep that time!”

“If you think the King will be pleased,” said Bilbo, cautiously, “and that I wouldn’t be, you know, taking your from your business, or getting you into trouble.” _And if Thorin will actually be glad to see me_ , he did not say out loud.

“Oh all this!” Kíli answered, waving his hands at the piles of documents. “This can all wait, I’m sure! Really, it’s a better idea to set out after them. Thorin might not like it, if he doesn’t get the news of your return at once. And besides!” with a look of great mischief. "I look forward to seeing his face when you give him a startle!”  

Thought Bilbo. "Oh, dear me.”

The startle did come about, although not at all in the way they had foreseen.

With terrific energy and obvious relief, Kíli got himself changed into adventuring gear and weapons, and rounded up a company of soldiers. Bilbo dressed in his mail shirt and sturdy cloak and the belt which held Sting. He did not forget to check his pockets, either. The Dwarves were all riding, and the Hobbit, not without internal grumbling, got himself onto the pony they readied for him as well. The late autumn weather was grey and chill as they set forth; though the last yellow leaves were still clinging to the trees, a few dry snowflakes had begun to drift down.

They rode through the morning, and at midday a scout came riding back to say that he’d seen the King’s banners in the valley ahead. But when they drew near, Kíli suddenly threw up a hand and listened intently, and the other Dwarves did the same. Bilbo heard it, too: the sound of battle! There were shouts ahead, and a deep Dwarf voice called, “Du Bekar!” The clash of shields and weapons came to them on the wind, and with them a strange, high, eerie keening and chittering, and puzzling noises as of shattering glass. “What in the name of Yavanna’s holy tits was that?” said the chief sergeant to the Prince. “I’ve never heard anything like!”

Quickly, Kíli gave them orders: his people were to spread themselves out along the bluff and advance slowly through the woods towards the King’s position, keeping in sight of one another, and not rushing in until they discovered the nature of the foe. _Not the rash young archer, anymore_ , Bilbo thought, with a strange little pride. Kíli bade the hobbit stay close by his side, and together they crept closer.

When they crawled through the thickets to the lip of the rocky slopes that ringed the small valley, a shocking sight met their eyes. Thorin and his troops were at bay, fighting furiously against a swarm of monstrous shapes, utterly alien: like enormous spiders, they seemed in outline, but they were bone-white, hard and half-translucent. Cold roiled from them, the air misting white wherever they ran on their numerous legs, and the ground seeming to blot with snow beneath their very feet. A foul sense filled the air, as of dark magic. The creatures screamed and whistled in high, thin, sickening voices,  and twittered and clacked their hard jaws as they assaulted the embattled Dwarves below.

They could see that Thorin and his soldiers had slain some of the monsters, which lay in pieces that resembled shards of broken ice. As they struck at them with their axes and swords and hammers, the monsters cracked apart with a sound of fracturing glass, an uncanny, violent sound that rang through the woods. But the bodies of more than one Dwarrow lay on the ground, too, and the swarming creatures were many. Even as they watched, it seemed as if Thorin and his soldiers, with Dwalin and Fíli visible at his side, were forced to give ground, though they were struggling to stay near their fallen friends.

Kíli shouted orders to his party to join the fray, and even as the Prince took his bow in hand, Bilbo plucked him on the sleeve, pointed to his own finger and then to the King. Kíli nodded, and Bilbo slipped on the Ring and slid down the slope towards Thorin.

Once more, with a nauseating slither, the world shifted around him, to the grey and darkened plane to which the Ring transported him. Invisible, he ran and dodged and slid through the raging fight. As always, with the Ring on, the world around him darkened. The icy monsters, as creatures of sorcery, shone with an angry, spiteful aura, while Thorin glowed warm as if made of firelight, the solitary hopeful thing in this colorless, cold realm. 

With the ring on, Bilbo could hear horrid words within the ice-beasts’ cries: “Take the Dwarf King, take the Prince! Tear them, freeze their flesh, suck their blood, but seize them alive! We have been promised their meat, when the Master has done with them!”

Just as Bilbo reached him, he saw to his horror that brave Dwalin was struck down by a monster who was reaching sharp claws for the King. Undaunted, Dwalin had thrown his body right before the monster’s grasp. Scored by great bloody rents across his legs, he fell. Another foe clambered over him to press the attack; one of them reached out its maw, and sinking its teeth into the big warrior's flesh, began to drag him away. Thorin and Fíli cried out and clutched for Dwalin. The ground had grown treacherous, mixed with ice and mud and blood, and Thorin’s boot slipped.

The largest of the wintery, alien things reared up, about to drop upon the King, when suddenly it screamed, and beat the air with its many legs, and a moment later, shattered. “What is it, what is it, what is it!” cried the monsters, turning and striking about them in confusion, beating at something unseen. “Where is it, where is it, where?”

Thorin grinned, savagely.

From thin air, the Hobbit appeared. “Here I am, you foul, vile creatures! Come and try my sting!”

The creatures shrieked in rage and confusion. Arrows were falling amid the rear of their swarm now, some lit with fire. From the forest, Kíli’s fresh soldiers attacked, shouting. The King and his people took instant advantage of their enemies’ confusion, and shoulder to shoulder charged back again. Soon Kíli met his brother and his uncle in the midst of the rout, and all the foul foes were beaten into an icy mess of ruined carapace, splintered legs, and severed heads. 

“Ice spiders,” said Dwalin grimly, sitting on the ground as his comrades bound his bleeding legs. “Supposed to be a folk tale, a damned fireside story! Only it seems the folk of old remembered truly!”

“They were after Thorin and Fíli! They knew them to be the King and the Prince,” said Bilbo. At everybody’s look, he said, “I can understand them, like the spiders in Mirkwood.”

“You could understand the ones in Mirkwood?” said Fíli. Belatedly, Bilbo tried to think back about what he had and hadn’t explained at the time; his impulse towards secrecy about everything to do with the Ring had so many unforeseen threads.

“Hold!” And now here was Thorin, looking at him with a stern face, and dark, unreadable glance. “Save these questions! We must get to safety, before we may speak. There is much to take council on. Back to the Mountain! I want us underway within a quarter hour.”

 _He is absolutely right_ , Bilbo thought. The stray flakes of the morning had now become a steady light snow. The light was already fading into dusk. They had wounded to protect and get to the healers. While they had defeated this present swarm of monsters, they had no idea what followers might come after them; and who was the Master of which he heard them speak? _Thorin is absolutely right to focus on giving orders and safety and his people._

But his heart was wrung. The King did not come and put his arms around him, as Kíli had. He would not even look his way, after the first glance. Fíli found a moment to clap him on the shoulder, and Dwalin to take his hand and squeeze it, before being helped away. But Thorin busied himself among the soldiers, and soon he was on his horse, and they were all riding back again. Bilbo, awkward rider that he was, ended up near the rear of the file. He saw Kíli turn and look back at him; with dismay, he thought; and lean towards his uncle to speak. Thorin did not turn his head.

#

Their force was riding by torchlight, by the time they reached Erebor amid a steady swirling snow. The light of many lanterns filled the immense arches and countless windows of the great fortress city. Above them on the steep slopes of the Mountain, rivers of blue-white snow flowed among black rock and forest. If one stared up into the sky, one’s gaze became lost amid the downward spiralling snowflakes, Bilbo found: the snow clung to his lashes and cheeks, half-melted, and so if there were any tears, they, too, were mingled and lost.

The van of the host crossed the causeway and entered in, the King at their head. By the time Bilbo followed, at the rear of the long file of soldiers, and dismounted his pony in the inner court, Thorin was just leaving it, ascending the great stairs with his officers around him. A servant appeared by his side, and said, “His Majesty asked that you await him in his chamber, Master Hobbit. Come, I will accompany you.”

He would have liked to defy the fellow, to brush past him and thrust himself by Thorin’s side, and insist on being heard. That’s what he’d done a hundred times, on the Quest, when the King told Gandalf or the Company or Bilbo himself to _keep this annoying burglar out of his way_. But this time he did not; he suffered himself to be led aside, and taken to Thorin’s quarters, which were empty of Thorin.  

In the time since Bilbo had left, change had marched on. The once-bare chambers were much richer now. A desk of ebony and gold held the King’s papers. A tray with silver wine ewer and goblets sat on a great oak table with carven boar-heads at each corner, and matching tall chairs around it. A thick woolen carpet in a geometric pattern warmed the floor, and armchairs for guests were scattered around. Gone were the pallet on the floor and the scavenged comforts of Bilbo’s months with Thorin.

The servant, a sour-faced old fellow with a beard down to his belt, had not been chosen for his conversation or his courtesy, it seemed. He worked silently around the chamber, leaving the Hobbit to his thoughts: building up the fire, putting on water to heat, lighting lamps.  After some time, however, he said to Bilbo, “You’re wet through, sir. Won’t you change?”  Bilbo’s pack had been brought up from where he left it, when he and Kílí readied to ride out. That seemed long ago, now.

“This one’s probably worried that I’m dripping on Thorin’s fine carpet,” Bilbo thought nastily. “And that he’ll be scolded for it.” But the truth was, he was soaked, and weary, and starting to shiver. He did go into the inner room, which the servant indicated, carrying his fresh clothes; this now had been furnished with a proper fine-looking bed with gold hangings ( _Thorin’s bed, don’t think about it_ ), and Bilbo put off his mithril shirt and sword and cloak changed into dry things, and came out again.

The servant was gone, and Thorin was standing before the great window, looking out at the drifting snow, with his arms crossed behind him.

Somehow the space between them seemed suddenly vast and uncrossable. Bilbo did not go to him, therefore. He sat down at the big wooden table, and clasped his hands in front of him. The fire snapped, and otherwise all was silent.

In his deep, stately voice, without turning, the King said, “You saved Dwalin’s life, this day, and likely Fílí’s and mine. I am once more in your debt.”

“Hello, Bilbo, it’s good to see you, too!” said the Hobbit, in quiet exasperation. He found his hands were making fists. 

“Don’t tell me you came all this way to exchange light pleasantries,” said Thorin, with scorn in his tone.

“I came all this way at least expecting to be treated as your friend!” cried Bilbo. “And not as if I had somehow offended you by riding to your aid, _Your Majesty!_ ” Probably he should not fling Thorin’s title at him as if it were an insult; but the Dwarf’s coldness, his haughty reserve, were filling the Hobbit with unhappiness.

Thorin turned and strode towards him. “By riding to my aid—did you expect me to listen to your judgement of me, to learn my fate, upon a field of battle? Did you require an audience, so you should not even have to listen to my plea?”

He seemed furious and miserable; he spoke with that memorable low, resentful tone of hurt, which Bilbo knew so well, and which tended to fill him both with anger and with—something else, in his heart. But why on earth was Thorin was using it on him now?

“My _judgement_ of you? Your plea? I honestly have no idea what you’re talking about, you stubborn—!” By a hair, he stopped himself from calling the monarch _fool_ in his frustration.

Thorin looked shocked. He drew himself up, and came and stood behind Bilbo’s chair. “You did not—receive my letter?”

“What letter?” Bilbo snapped. “I’ve had no word from you! I came because—-” He stopped, as a thought crossed his mind. “Why? Did it—did it tell me to stay away? Well, if so, you’ll just have to tell me to my face! Surely you’ve enough courage for that!”

“NO!” cried Thorin, and more quietly, “No, it did not. It said no such thing. But if you never got my letter, why did you come?” He put his hand on Bilbo’s shoulder. It lay there, warm, strong. Bilbo quietly put his own up, and covered Thorin’s. What he had to say might be easier, if he did not turn and face him.

“I went home. I went home, and tried to take up the pieces of my old life in the Shire. And try as I might, I could not seem to make it whole again. I found that I was missing something fundamental. Can you guess what it was?” Thorin’s other hand moved to rest on Bilbo’s head; he stroked his hair, but he did not say anything. “I kept trying to fill the hole, but all I did was find ways of making it bigger and bigger.”

He paused. The gentle motion of Thorin’s fingers in his hair was very distracting; it was hard to speak. And he had not been sure, at first, what he was going to say. Surely there was no need to speak of the prompts which had lead him into action, so long as he was here? But he was determined, finally, not to hide.

He got up from the chair. He turned, and put his arms around Thorin, and looked up at him. “I tried very had to make myself think of you only as a friend: a very dear friend, and to put anything else behind us. I went so far as to—I thought if I treated things as lightly as I used to, I could let you go. So I looked up an old acquaintance, and I—” he stopped.

“Oh,” said Thorin. It seemed clear from his face, that this was not what he expected. There was a long pause, and then he said, in a low voice, “You made me no promises. We exchanged no vows, and so I have no right to complain if— “ 

“It was _awful_. Awful and stupid and lonely: all I could do was miss you, and want to be somewhere else, and want _you_. I stopped it and sent him away. I’m sorry!” He put his head against Thorin’s chest.

“If,” said Thorin, in a considering tone, with his hand in Bilbo’s hair again, “if all this fellow did was remind you that you belong with me, and send you riding a thousand miles back to me, then I have not come out of it so badly.”

Bilbo looked up at him, sharply, and found that Thorin was looking at him with a certain amount of humor. The Hobbit whuffed out a half-angry breath and kissed him, and was kissed back very hard in return. “You owe me no apology, as I have said. But if you would like to make penance, then,” said the King, and here he whispered in his ear, “Come and show me!”

It was the first time they had had one another in an actual bed, and they stayed there a long time.

Despite knowing that the other only teased him, Bilbo found that what his body and his imagination wanted was to perform repentance and gentle amends. For parting with him; for letting him be sad, for leaving his dear body longing for him, as he had longed for Thorin. He slid halfway down the bed, and putting one hand on his hip, he lapped and licked at his slick cock, as it were his mission in life to servilely please him. And Thorin indulged him, pulled at his hair, thrust deep into his throat, and enjoyed his humble submission.

But when Thorin’s climax was very near, he pulled out and wrestled Bilbo onto his side, and said, sternly,  “It is for me to say how I will have you,” and he pushed his hard prick into him, with great roughness, which they both liked so much that each came, one after the other. 

When Bilbo could finally speak again, he said, “What about this letter of yours? What was in it that made you so wary of me?”

“Seeing as you never read it, shall we not pretend I never sent it?” said Thorin.

Bilbo looked at him with a raised eyebrow. “I got yours,” Thorin said at last. “The cheerful letter you sent, which led me to believe you were perfectly happy to be home in the Shire, and spoke no word of missing me, or ever returning.” The Hobbit put his hand quietly on the other’s. “I got horribly drunk. I went to bed with Grådig." 

Bilbo made a sound of protest. “I’ve been told on good authority that you don’t even like bedding women!”

“Neither does she like it with men. But she would have liked to be Queen. We fumbled through it,” he grunted at the memory and flung one hand on his forehead. “So much teat. Such a terrible temper!”

“Hers, or yours?” said Bilbo, with asperity.

“Both, when she found I regretted it the next morning, and wanted her to leave. There’s a good chance she’ll try to have me assassinated, Dwalin thinks,” Thorin said reflectively. “Possibly you too, now you’re back.”  
  
“The letter?” Bilbo prompted.

“Continuing to drink, after getting rid of the harridan, I sat down to write you a letter, in which I blamed you for leaving me, and called you a coward, and demanded you return to me, or else come and tell me to my face that you cared nothing for me, if you dared, though,” Thorin closed his eyes, “I believe I also wrote that you would be a liar if you did. And then I sent it by a messenger, and woke up sober, to realize that it was gone beyond my recall.”

“And you thought,” said Bilbo, “When I showed up among the ice spiders, that I had come to take you at your word.” 

“It would have served me right,” said Thorin. “If you had saved my life again, and told me you would break with me for good and all, and ridden home.” 

“Possibly,” said Bilbo. “But luckily for us, I think there is a fair chance that we shall get, not what we deserve, fools that we both are, but what we want, and what makes us happy.”

#

High on a cold mountainside, the little figure crouched in the snow, shivering. It was thinking; it was trying to remember. Long ago, when it lived by the side of a great river, it knew about such ones: what it could recall was awful!

Dwarveses! They lives in mountains, Precious, but not _nice_ mountains full of dark caves and tender orc babies all alone in their burrows, oh no! _Terrible_ mountains full of bright lanterns, and strong hard stony people, with eyes that saw in the dark, and shiny, sharp axes!

 _Baggins_ was in there, it could feel him, feel the Precious, too. But it couldn’t sneak in after him: Dwarveses would see it, Dwarveses would find it! Curse the Baggins, the thief!

It began to weep. It was very cold, very hungry, very miserable.  So cold that sleep began to creep over it, sitting there half buried in snow;  and it thought perhaps that sleep might be peaceful; that it might be best, at last. Better than this long, hopeless trailing after what it could never reach again.

Suddenly, something was grasping and lifting it, high in the air. It looked in astonishment: giant cold-clear-ice-things with many legs. They were whispering to him: “Why are you weeping, little thing?” In despair, it tried to tell them: perhaps they would help! After all, Precious would be no use to such as _they_. They hadn’t even fingers!

The ice-things listened, and whispered to each other with voices like the sharp edge of broken glass. “Come with us!” They said. “Come to meet our Master! _He_ will want this news!” “He will gets Precious for us?” it asked, hopeful. “Oh, _certainly_ , my dear!’ They laughed, and holding him high in their cold hard claws, they scuttled away on their many legs,  over the mountains and far away.

 

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**Author's Note:**

> Author’s Note: 
> 
> A reckless blend of movie-verse and book-verse. Visual references are Jackson movies, but the Shire details are from the books, or my head. 
> 
> For those of you who’ve read my traumatizing Bagginshield one-shot, Sequel, I swear that this one has a (relatively) happy ending, after suitable angst and barriers to happiness.
> 
> I was inspired to write a story in which would delicately tease apart Bilbo’s identification within the books as highly literate-artistic-bachelor-odd-eccentric in a Shire culture where traditional marriage and parenting of children seems the near-universal household model, where respectability is embraced and risk shunned, and explore how he might adapt as a prominent person within a tight-knit culture that doesn’t persecute, but has little room for those outside the ordinary.
> 
> Also (as you may have picked up if you read my other stories) I see little reason to give monogamy and pre-marital inexperience the privilege it has among many fans, or assume that finding one true love doesn’t come after plenty of exploration / trial & error. Sometimes people figure out what they want by the Goldilocks method: having awkward sex with other people who turn out to be not quite right.
> 
>  
> 
> Additional Notes
> 
> 1 - Thorin’s wine: “tasted somewhere between vinegar and jam that had gone badly off.” If you've ever tasted truly awful red wine, made of grapes grown someplace they should never be grown, and sold much too young, I swear to you that is what it tastes like!
> 
> 2 - Doesn't it drive you nuts, the number of stories where people forget to ask each other if they have any obligations to other partners, or there are any huge cultural taboos they are about to break, BEFORE they sex? Not that I won't read those stories: I totally will, especially if lots of angst results.
> 
> 3 - I can believe that the tiny, primarily agricultural/landed gentry Shire culture exists without monarchy, and with little in the way of police. But I imagine the byproduct is lots and lots of lawsuits: long, interminable, Dickensian lawsuits. And lots of little country village attorneys, with their own equivalent of silly wigs, for court.


End file.
